Sergei Skripal

Sergei Viktorovich Skripal (23 June 1951-) was a Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for British intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Biography
Sergei Viktorovich Skripal was born in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union on 23 June 1951. In 1972, he became a sapper-paratrooper in the Soviet Army, and he was co-opted into the GRU military intelligence from the airborne troops. In 1995, while serving at the military attache's office in Madrid, Spain, he was recruited by Britain's MI6 and passed on state secrets such as the identities of Russian intelligence agents. In 1996, due to suffering from diabetes, he returned to Russia, and he retired with the rank of colonel in 1999. In December 2004, he was arrested in Moscow after returning from Britain, and he was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. In 2010, Skripal was released in a spy swap with Russia, and he moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. After 2010, he continued to provide information to MI6. On 4 March 2018, Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, who was visiting from Moscow, fell into catatonic states on a public bench near a Salisbury shopping center, having been poisoned by nerve agents. The two were sent to the hospital in critical condition, and the British government responded to their poisonings by expelling 23 Russian diplomats from the UK on 14 March 2018.